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From the board to the sticker on the cooler,
this is every inch the standard reference board. I appreciate
Connect3D's desire to keep prices low but their own sticker
design on the cooler would at least have brought them a
little corporate identity. Curious parties peering in through
your case's side window at that big LAN part will certainly
be looking to see which company is responsible for the frag-a-licious
graphics you've got all over your screen and Connect3D should
at least consider a logo sticker to place somewhere. You
can't read it when it's spinning but even in the middle
of the fan would be better than nothing..
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Card
- Front (Click For a Larger Image)
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Card
- Front (Click For a Larger Image)
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I
must admit I haven't looked to see if other cards are the
same but I was initially a little concerned at the way the
end bracket bellies out to pass the video connector but
on closer inspection it seems to be pre-shaped to do that.
My worry was that a flat bracket was being bolted into place
and that this would put strain on the block and the solder
joints.
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Strain?
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I
must admit I was half expecting this to be a dual-DVI card
but as one of the many still using analogue I was glad to
see a native connector on there. Using a dongle always seems
to introduce a little too much strain on the connector for
my tastes.
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Connectors
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As I mentioned, the cooler is the traditional reference
style with no corporate branding at all. The fan is quite
large and a little feeble it would seem but it cools perfectly
adequately. I'm sure we'll see aftermarket coolers become
available and one of my first purchases would certainly
be a slightly more robust version.
The cooler isn't in direct contact with the memory chips
and therefor doesn't contribute to keeping them cool.
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Cooling
Fan
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Despite being the full-on 16-pipeline monster it is, the
XT-PE still requires nothing more than a single power connector
and a competent 300watt-ish power supply to keep it juiced
up.
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Power
Connector
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The
X800 XT-PE comes equipped with 256MB of Samsung K4J55323QF
GDDR 3. Unlike the X800 Pro's we've reviewed so far which
have been equipped with 2ns "-GC20" chips, the
PE is fitted with xx-GC16 (1.6ns) chips rated to 600Mhz
. I wonder who, if anyone, will be first to equip a board
with the faster still xx-GC14 (1.4ns) chips which are rated
to a very tasty sounding 700MHz.
Because
they run at only 560MHz there's a theoretical 40MHz (80MHz
effective) headroom before the chips are officially overclocked.
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Memory
Chips
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Being
a VIVO part we see an appearance from the multitalented
Rage Theater encoder/decoder chip. This is soldered on the
reverse of the card.
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Memory
Chips
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